The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  As Rohain took the cup, Thorn’s leaf-ring on her hand clashed against the metal. The sound reverberated with extraordinary volume. It resonated and hummed sickeningly inside her head, like a tocsin, or perhaps a toxin.

  ‘To your health!’ cried Dianella, lifting her goblet on high. ‘No hard feelings, Heart, let’s drink to that!’

  Rohain raised the vessel.

  ‘No,’ Georgiana Griffin blurted, ‘don’t drink!’

  ‘Actually, I had no intention of doing so,’ said Rohain, watching the thin black tongue of liquid drizzle over the rim of her tipped goblet. Spilled on the carpet, it gave off a wisp of steam. She let the vessel fall. Her footman and two guards, who had been standing scarcely noticed beside the door—one was never truly alone in the palace—moved swiftly toward Dianella. At the guard-captain’s command they stripped her fingers of the empty compartment-ring, and all other rings for good measure. Rohain’s maids clustered at her side, both talking at once. Their eyes, round with shock, were turned in accusation on Dianella. That lady returned their stares sadly.

  ‘Alack! I have failed,’ she drawled. ‘Yet do not judge me harshly. The decoction would not have harmed you, Dear Heart—it would only have brought upon you a semblance of death. Then, as you lay pale and unmoving in the crypt, my servants would have taken you away. On board a Seaship you would have woken to find yourself banished forever from these domains.’

  ‘Did you not mean to slay me?’

  ‘I swear I did not.’

  Rohain met her adversary’s eyes. Deep down in their troubled depths smoldered a faint ember of truth. Dianella tossed her head and looked away as if angry to have been deciphered.

  ‘The House of D’Armancourt is a pure bloodline,’ she said. ‘Royal blood—that is the seat of its power. All its brides have been chosen from royal houses or else from aristocrats of great and ancient families such as mine. Your thin serf’s blood shall taint it. Worse—you shall be its downfall.’

  ‘Hold your tongue!’ cried Rohain.

  At this, the courtier flushed with fury. Her voice became hard and harsh.

  ‘You think yourself so noble, selevader uncouthant. No doubt you thought to come here to these rooms to bring me comfort and show your goodness. Yet when they drag me through the streets next week, you will be watching from the window. You will laugh with the rest.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, haven’t you heard? ’Tis to be the spectacle of a decade! The Lord High Chancellor asked my dear friends Calprisia and Elmaretta to devise a suitable punishment for my so-called crimes. The sweetings suggested that humiliation would be my most dreaded nightmare. My hair is to be shorn off. I am to be dressed in rags and rattled through the streets in a donkey cart. After which, I expect they shall introduce me to the ax. I would prefer it.’

  ‘I shall intercede on your behalf.’

  ‘How gracious of you! You, whom I have wronged so dreadfully, sending you from Caermelor so that my uncle could tell the spriggans to carry you away and play with you. Take your pity elsewhere, malck-drasp.’ Glowering with sheer hatred at Rohain, the wizard’s niece spat words from her mouth like poison. ‘I will not waste my malison on you. I believe that has been done before, and done better.’

  Rohain departed.

  How foolish to have hoped for better.

  Later, she said to Thorn, ‘Dianella’s sentence must be commuted. Were I she, to be deprived of proximity to you would be far worse than any infliction of hurt or humiliation.’

  ‘Thou art not she. Yet if pity moves thee, she shall be merely banished.’

  ‘The Sorrow Isles are remote enough, from all accounts. And her uncle?’

  ‘Thou mayst not pity malice.’

  ‘Welcome back to Court, Rohain,’ said Thomas Rhymer. His voice was solemn, but his eyes twinkled. ‘We have been the worse without you. Dianella is currently indisposed, but, fed on scandal, the Set thrives more hardily than ever. Were I not incapable of even the slightest exaggeration I would swear they add a new word to the dratted courtingle each instant.’

  ‘Hail, Sir Thomas,’ Rohain replied awkwardly.

  ‘Tut. There’s no need to be diffident with me, my dear. Of course I guessed as soon as I met you that you had not come from the bleak shores of Sorrow Isles. So did Roxburgh. It mattered little to us—methinks a gentle damsel like you posed no threat to Imperial security! At first your beauty was an intrigue to us both, besides which your manner provided a contrast to the monotonous ways of Court life and the petty obsessions of the so-called Set. It was no time before we found we liked you better, the better we knew you. That you once served in a House of Stormriders does not demean you in our eyes—there is no shame in honest work. Never fear, your secret remains safe. No one else knows.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, for that deception.’

  ‘Consider it forgiven. Yet your path, and that of His Majesty, might have proved smoother had you entrusted us with a few meager scraps of knowledge.’

  ‘In truth, sir. And I am anguished to think of how much trouble might have been avoided, had I spoken out.’ Blood was shed at Isse because of my presence there.

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ said the Bard, guessing her thoughts. ‘That was not your doing. It was the work of Huon the Hunter! Come now,’ he added jovially, ‘do not be anguished! Is it not consolation that, your Dainnan of the wilderness has found you, whom he sought, and you have found him?’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘Had I known,’ he said, ‘had I but known to whom your heart belonged …’

  ‘You might have helped me straightway, if I had mentioned the name of Thorn!’

  ‘Indeed, my dear. Howbeit, all that is in the past now. It is time for rejoicing. Come, let me lead you to the Blue Drawing Room. The ladies Rosamonde and Maiwenna would fain keep company with you there, and Alys, with the children of Roxburgh.’

  The Winter sun shone cold, a pale doubloon. Lacquered against the sky, evergreens layered with fringes of pungent bristles reached out to offer upright cones like rows of squat candles.

  It was the twenty-fourth of Fuarmis, just six days until Primrose Amble with its candles, brides, white lace, horseshoes, and procession of ewes garlanded with the first tentative flowers of Spring. This year the period of the traditional festival was to be extended. It was to culminate in the celebrations for the royal betrothal, beginning on the fifteenth of Sovrachmis, the Primrosemonth. The lacuna between these dates was wadded with a flurry of activity, a cramming of the palace baileys with carters and their conveyances bringing supplies. Every merchant and pedlar in Caermelor had seized the opportunity of a Royal Ball to hawk his wares, whether or not they had been requisitioned for the occasion. In spite of the continuing belligerence simmering in Namarre, which constantly threatened to spill out across the Nenian Landbridge into northern Eldaraigne, the populace applied themselves to the preparations for this year’s festivities with an extra abundance of zeal.

  Viewed from a more exalted angle, Court seemed an entirely different place. To Rohain it was as though a screen had dropped from her eyes. She was introduced to aristocrats she had never before encountered, she found herself guided to regions of the palace she had not yet seen, she was treated with a respectfulness so novel she could not accustom herself to it. This new state of dignity was almost unnerving.

  Courtiers acknowledged Rohain deferentially wherever she went. Crowds thicker than ever jostled at the gates from early morn until late evening. They were hoping for a glimpse of the chosen bride of the King-Emperor, James XVI of the House of D’Armancourt and Trethe, also titled High King and Emperor of Greater Eldaraigne, Finvarna, Severnesse, Luindorn, Rimany, and Namarre; King of his other Realms and Territories. Those who ran the Court machinery had assiduously put it about that his bride-to-be came of a noble line that, impoverished by ill fortune, had sunk into obscurity. If any disapproval evolved, or any questions were whispered about her birth, they were suppressed and popularly passed over. The King-Emperor might follo
w any whim he chose, and it would be accepted. As the highest of the high, his actions were beyond the context of convention. Besides, the people were glad their sovereign was to wed again at last.

  Dianella’s dark dye remained fast in Rohain’s hair. It proved difficult to wash out. Rohain considered this fortunate, since to be publicly revealed as Talith would inevitably invite further questions as to her origins, and would surely destroy the careful constructions of the senior members of the King’s Household, who so ardently desired that His Majesty’s troth-plighted should be accepted by the populace as a gentlewoman.

  ‘Thou dost call me Gold-Hair,’ she said to Thorn, ‘though my locks are now as dark as thine.’

  He shrugged. ‘Use what paints and colours thou wilt. Thou’rt Gold-Hair, beneath it all.’

  To the far reaches of the Empire of Erith the tidings of royal betrothal travelled. Throughout Caermelor, all was noise and traffic, but within the walls of the Palace remained a wonderful, undisturbed tranquillity, an amazing sense of peace. The city whirled, and Rohain was its vortex, the stillness at the storm’s eye. To see the evidence of her new authority, her influence as an emblem, took her breath away. Thorn’s casual use of power awed her. She wondered how it would be to wield it with such careless assurance.

  All this, she would whisper often to herself, by the Greayte Star—for me?

  And sometimes the prediction of the twisted lad in the Tower would return to tease her.

  For her, sheltered, there was no haste, no bustle—only days that slipped by like rain through a colander; days spent sometimes in conversation with Prince Edward, or with Sianadh (when he was not making merry with the butlers, ewerers, and panters in the servants’ quarters), or perhaps spent with Thomas Rhymer, or both (the two Ertishmen having formed a drinking and storytelling fellowship), or with the steadfast and ebullient Alys-Jannetta and her lively progeny. Gladly, Rohain was now able to eschew the tiresome company of the Set. Affairs of state took Thorn from her side at times. Then, with her attendants and Maiwenna the Talith gentlewoman and young Rosamonde of Roxburgh, she would ride out in a coach from the Royal Mews, through countryside green-hazed with the buds of an early Spring.

  Maiwenna had become a friend. Rohain trusted her almost to the point of revealing her own Talith heritage, but not quite. She asked whether the gentlewoman knew anything of a lost Talith damsel. Maiwenna, however, was nonplussed. She knew of no clues that might lead to discovering Rohain’s past. Subsequently, the two spent many hours together, deep in conversation about Avlantia’s history.

  But most often Rohain’s time was spent at the side of he whom she loved beyond others—loved with a passion so intense that it was a wound to the heart.

  ‘Let us go out,’ he would say. ‘These four walls are like to suffocate me.’

  Laughing, chaffing one another, they would saunter in the gardens, or go riding and hawking through the Royal Game Reserves in the ancient Forest of Glincuith. He gave her a sparrowhawk and lessons in archery. He gave her a crimson rose so very dark that it was almost black, whose scent was a dream of Midsummer’s Night. And his long hair flowed blacker than Midwinter’s Night, glinting with a red sheen like the dark rose. He gave her a palfrey the hue of marshmallow frosting, and a diadem of gems like Sugar crystals. His land-horse, a splendid, swift, and spirited creature that he esteemed as much as he cherished Errantry, was named Altair. Hers was called Firinn.

  These hours together, secluded, afforded Rohain rare glimpses of a shy tenderness in her beloved, a hesitancy quite unlike the self-assurance he possessed at other times. It was like the diffidence of wild creatures, such as birds and deer. Most often, he would be as a carefree and wanton youth—zestful, capricious, as merry as a jester, indulging in whimsy and play and foolish nonsense, in which she participated with a footloose joyousness and reckless abandon that surprised her inner self by springing from it. Gentle, witty badinage volleyed between them, taking unexpected turnings. Seldom could he be precognised.

  He could be as temperate as the soft winds caressing the northern valleys, or stern as stone and as grim. And when this cold mood was on him it did not affect his manner with Imrhien-Rohain; toward her he was warm always, even though the unmelting snow of all Winters to others.

  She knew full well that in these times of unrest he was needed at the helm of the Royal Attriod, but as often as possible he delegated his duties to his commanders and stewards in order to spend time in the company of his betrothed. Fortunately, there had come another unexpected lull in the activities of men and wights in Namarre and northern Eldaraigne. The buildup of minor assaults and skirmishes had again subsided. It seemed they were now gathering their strength, perhaps in readiness for some greater onslaught.

  Nonetheless, Thorn could not always be spared from governance. On a day when his duties took him elsewhere, Rohain walked through the palace picture galleries and statue galleries on the arm of the young Prince. They halted beside a window to look out at the dormant Spring Garden with its arches of lichened crab-apples most ancient.

  ‘I should like to see those leafless trees in bloom,’ she said. ‘Crab-apples bear exquisite blossoms. I think they are my favourites.’

  ‘You shall see them,’ said Edward, ‘this and every Spring.’

  Thorn’s silver-clasped hunting-horn was hooked to Edward’s belt. As he turned away from the window it chimed against a marble pedestal. Noting the direction of Rohain’s gaze, the Prince said, ‘Traditionally, the Coirnéad is worn by the reigning monarch—however, he has requested that I bear it now and in the future, saying it may stand me in good stead.’

  ‘The Coirnéad?’

  ‘A horn of Faêran workmanship. For centuries, an heirloom of the Royal Family.’

  ‘A fair ornament.’

  A frown crumpled the Prince’s brow. They walked on. Edward made as if to speak again, but hesitated.

  ‘You are beauteous, lady,’ he stammered suddenly. ‘Do not think I flatter you, pray, when I tell you your beauty outshines all other beauties. He has chosen his consort well. His recommendation is law to me. My faith in his wisdom and judgment is implicit. I shall be glad to accept you as my—’

  ‘I can never stand in your mother’s place. Pray, allow me to be your friend.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said earnestly, ‘and I shall be your friend and most devoted admirer. Nothing could make me happier than to welcome you into this family, dear Rohain.’ Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it. His youthful smile was open, ingenuous.

  ‘So saying, you make my own happiness complete,’ she said, returning the smile.

  The castle hawk-mews was extensive, housing not only hawks but also falcons, and one majestic wedge-tailed eagle named Audax. The Hawkmaster sported eight taut silver scars on his bald dome where the talons of an eagle owl had once gored him when he was stealing her clutch of eggs. In the mornings, he could be seen in the yards with his falconers and austringers, swinging lures to bring half-trained birds back to the fist. The lures were a pair of moorhens’ or magpies’ wings dried in an open position and fastened back to back, with a fresh piece of tough beef tied onto the end of a line.

  Often, the clear ringing of the tail-bell on a returning gyrfalcon tantalized the early light. The bird would scream a welcome as it flew down, jesses trailing, thrusting its feet forward to lock onto the falconer’s tasseled glove, the savage joy of flight still purling in its black, gold-rimmed eye.

  The Hawkmaster took Rohain among the sounds of the mews—the tiny tintinnabulation of bells, the bird-screams and whistles and chatter, the rasping whirr of rousing wings, the talk among the austringers and falconers. He proudly showed her the clean gravel-floored pens where roosted goshawks or sparrowhawks, merlins, hobbies, ospreys, peregrines, or the great and noble gyrfalcons, tethered to blocks and perches. Boys were assiduously sweeping up casts and scrubbing mutes off the walls. An austringer coped a tiercel goshawk’s beak using a small, bone-handled knife and an abrasive stone. Anot
her imped the damaged tail-feather of a hooded gray hawk, carefully attaching a replacement pinion to the base of the broken one. An apprentice weighed a peregrine on a small set of scales.

  ‘Have to cut him down,’ he said. ‘He’s put on too much.’

  ‘Cut him down?’ repeated Rohain, astonished.

  ‘Cut down his feed, m’lady,’ explained the apprentice, with a respectful salute.

  ‘The merry merlins fly at larks,’ the Hawkmaster said informatively, moving among the birds with Rohain, ‘but the gay goshawks be the cooks’ birds, so we say, for they will tackle fur or feather. A hunting engine they be, the goshawks, swift as arrows—but ’tis their wont to be peevish and contrary betimes. They must be handled with patience.’

  The eagle sat alone in a magnificent pen, fierce-eyed, his irises silver. He was beautiful; black with a pale nape, wing-coverts and under-tail coverts. His legs were long, strong and full-feathered.

  ‘We keeps the hawks and falcons well away from Audax the Great, else he might make a quick meal on ’em,’ said the Hawkmaster. ‘He will only come to two men—meself, who trained him, and His Imperial Majesty. Only royalty may fly eagles, but no milk-and-water king could do it. Audax’s wing-span be more than seven feet, tip to tip. His weight be nigh on seven pound and his hind claw be as thick as a man’s little finger. He can bring down small hounds, ye ken, and deer.’

  A falconer went past carrying a bucket of day-old chicks and another of frogs and lizards. The eagle roused and shook himself.

  ‘Coo-ee-el,’ he whistled. ‘Pseet-you, pseet-you.’

  ‘Soothee, soothee,’ said the Hawkmaster.

  Winter faded. Gone were the moon-spun webs of night, the tinsels of rime lining each edge with glitter, like the shang, and drawing frost feathers on leaf and pane with an exquisite silver pencil. It seemed that every day the sun flew up like a yellow rose and fell down like a red one, and at the end of Winter the stirring of Spring could already be felt as a stirring of the blood; every bare and lichened bough carried the promise of blossom and verdure. The breezes sighed with perfumed breath and sunlight coloured them with pale gold. In the Forest of Glincuith, the only sounds were bright gems of birdsong, and baubles of laughter threaded on strange sweet music drifting from the trees; the piping of eldritch things, like the plaint of weird birds. These sounds, Thorn made into a necklace and tossed it over the head of his betrothed. It hung about her shoulders, where it mingled with the abundant spirals and falls of heavy gold from which the dye had at last been stripped after many rinsings, along with the natural sheen, so that most folk believed she had bleached her tresses.